My Experience in Story-Telling
By William McCormick
William McCormick in "S. S. Times"
ONE Sunday evening in the early fall, several years ago, I told stories to a group of boys. There were about fifteen in the crowd. They were nearly all lads who worked for wages; typical working boys, I suppose, from typical working men's families. Not poor families, you will understand. They were not neglected lads, in the usual understanding of that term. It was a Sunday evening, and all of them bore some evidence of Sunday sprucing up,—in red necktie, or celluloid collar, or signs of a hand-washing before breakfast. They had come in groups of two or three from different parts of the town. The groups were practically unknown to each other, and the boys were unknown to me save for an acquaintance formed a few days previous. I had asked them if they liked to hear stories, and said I would tell them some if they came round of a Sunday evening. So much for the personnel of my group. As to my stories, I started off with Elijah and his sevenfold prayer. I began with a little misgiving, in the fear that the story would fall flat because it was too well known to be really entertaining. I prefaced it with a warning that the boys who knew it should not give away the "plot" before I reached the end. Then I plunged in. The warning was useless. The story took me fifteen minutes in the telling, perhaps, and I never in my life saw a more eager audience. They listened almost breathless to the very end. Then I asked if none of them had ever heard it before. Not one. And they clamored for more. The next story I prefaced with the same trite warning; for this one had been so familiar to me from my babbling childhood, that I could not see how it could be unfamiliar to any one. It was the story of the three boys in the fiery furnace. There was no relaxing of interest here. They listened through to the end, if possible with wider eyes than before. Had any of them ever heard it? I asked, as they were digesting impressions. No, they hadn't; not one of them. I was marveling a little now. I asked them how many went to Sunday-school. Their hands were promptly upraised. I would experiment on that. The day's Sunday-school lesson had been "The Crossing of the Jordan." I briefly told the tale of it, and I asked then if any of them had ever heard it. They hadn't, they said, except two, who rather thought perhaps they had. They weren't quite sure. They had been at Sunday-school that afternoon, I learned. The others hadn't. They frankly admitted that they had been hunting chestnuts. But as to the Jordan story. I had not told the name of the people's leader, and I asked if any one knew it. Nobody did, including the aforesaid two. I gave a hint then. It began with "J," I said. That made it promptly easy. "It was Jesus!" they shouted, almost in chorus. I told them stories often after that. The listeners varied sometimes in personnel and intelligence. They never varied in attention, and they never embarrassed me by too profound knowledge. I relaxed my fear and relinquished my apology. It was no longer necessary to suggest that somebody might have heard this before. They never had. Whether it was the world drowned with a flood, or a fleeing woman turned into a pillar of salt, or a father about to sacrifice his son, it was all novel and strange and wonderful to this Sunday evening group. I had almost exhausted my resources at last, and had to half apologize for what was coming now; for it was the time-worn story of Daniel and the lions. But only one hand went up when I asked who had heard that before. He was an unattached orphan, without a home. He said he "seen it in a picture oncet." He had never heard or read the story. He had just looked at the picture and imagined the rest. Now here was the germ of an idea. It seemed to me worth cultivating. I nurtured it, and let it grow.